Look, if being "mysterious" is the only thing that makes someone interesting, that just shows how poorly thought out said creation is in the first place.

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It's not a bad quality for a monster to have. It is a bad quality for a villain to have.

A monster is a force of nature that derives its oomph from being mysterious and simple, and usually represents some kind of iconic, elemental fear. A villain is just like any other character - except that he's the bad guy.

The more you know about a monster, the less cool and interesting he is. The more you know about a villain, the more cool and interesting he is.

The Borg were originally designed as monsters, not villains. As villains, they're too simplistic. VOY made the mistake of trying to add complexity to move them from monster to villain status. All that happened is that they ruined a good monster and ended up with a lame villain.

Villains are pretty common in literature, movies, TV shows, etc, because being regular sorts of characters, they're much easier to devise. But a good monster is hard to create, which makes it a rare thing and should be handled with care.

TNG already did all that first. The only TNG Borg story that had the Borg as true "monsters" was Q Who?, their intro episode. And that story STILL needed Q and Guinan to be the narrators with the Borg almost as a background element than anything else (Q was in total control of the situation the whole time).

If the Borg were meant to be some 1-D monster that could never be developed into anything more, the TNG writers should've saved themselves the trouble and gotten rid of them all to stop the inevitable humanization that occurred. They should've never been anything more than a one-shot that was permanently destroyed at the end of BOBW.

I think the only mistake done to the Borg by TNG was the introduction of the Queen.

However, Voyager managed to destroy it, along with a unimatrix 01 and all TW hubs in the galaxy.

Therefore, if the Borg survived, it's possible that they could perceive the queen as an error in their calculations and simply remove her from the equation (Humanity was more or less on the losing side of the conflict with the Queen out of the picture).

while I will agree that the destruction of the cube in BoBw resulted in a 'lucky hit', the rest of TNG didn't fare any better.
Same went for Voyager.

As for Voyager going up against the Tactical cube and surviving... case in point, Voyager was newer than a Galaxy class and could have sported some anti-borg systems SF made in the meantime, and let's not forget that it's offensive/defensive systems are likely identical to the Galaxy class -same power in a smaller package.

But if you also recall, this encounter with the Tactical cube happened AFTER the ships shields and weapons were enhanced by 'One' - granted, that Sphere was able to counteract voyager's phaser beam with a feedback pulse, but I would surmise that 7's presence on voyager countered numerous 'tricks' that the Borg could have done to them... along with SF engineers on the ship who had time to analyse the results of the combat and come up with a way to counter them.

Plus, phaser beams delivered to the Tactical cube at the time were short bursts... probably very powerful short bursts at the same time.

And like I said, in BOBW the Ent-D attacks the Cube (when they're rescuing Locutus) and manages to survive relatively unscathed whereas earlier we saw that same Cube destroying Starfleet ships in SINGLE SHOTS.

Yes, that Cube ended up leaving after they got Locutus but the Ent-D still lasted ridiculously longer against it compared to the 40 other Starships that got trashed.

And like I said, in BOBW the Ent-D attacks the Cube (when they're rescuing Locutus) and manages to survive relatively unscathed whereas earlier we saw that same Cube destroying Starfleet ships in SINGLE SHOTS.

Yes, that Cube ended up leaving after they got Locutus but the Ent-D still lasted ridiculously longer against it compared to the 40 other Starships that got trashed.

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yeah, but they showed them having to create innovative strategies for that, separating the ship, etc. And when it comes down to it, story necessity and the fact that they only had the Ent-D have a full on encounter with a Borg Cube by itself twice, and one time they got their butts handed to them ("Q Who") makes this acceptable.

Voyager, which was one ship with no backup, in a region surrounded by Borg, survived multiple encounters with the Borg while taking little damage. They became just another random opponent, like the Kazon.

They didn't survive multiple encounters by winning or anything. It was almost always because a superior force to the Borg intervened and saved them.

1) Scorpion: the 8472; Now I KNOW that folks hate the idea of there being even a SINGLE alien species out there stronger than the Borg but they have to get over themselves. Q said that the Borg were just one species that was strong, which clearly meant there were other aliens just as if not MORE powerful out there so this story made sense.

2) Unity: The Cube was already damaged and messed up, and it was the benevolent Borg Cooperative that destroyed it.

3) One: It was the super-advanced drone that destroyed the Borg ship.

4) Unimatrix Zero: Again, benevolent Borg saved them.

5) Dark Frontier: It was a PROBE ship that wasn't stronger than Voyager to begin with.

So what if the ship didn't take a lot of damage? The ENT-D didn't look all that damaged after BOBW, and there were plenty of alien repair stations and commerce worlds they could go to for help. They just didn't bother showing it because they couldn't think of any good stories that had the ship out of the picture for entire episodes and they didn't have the money to make brand new space station sets and models.

^^^All this is completely correct. And the defeat of the Borg at the end of Child's Play was with the help of the alien disease carried by Icheb.

And the depiction of Borg as nonresponsive to people wandering about until they are perceived as a threat doesn't weaken the Borg, it just paints them as nonaggressive. Not the same thing.

Still, there's no way to rationalize Survival Instinct where the Borg are defeated by a storm at the beginning and where drones manage to simply escape! But then, there's no reason to rationalize that since no one is thinking of Survival Instinct when they prattle about Voyager weakening the Borg. I guess that means they're really upset about something else.

They didn't survive multiple encounters by winning or anything. It was almost always because a superior force to the Borg intervened and saved them.

1) Scorpion: the 8472; Now I KNOW that folks hate the idea of there being even a SINGLE alien species out there stronger than the Borg but they have to get over themselves. Q said that the Borg were just one species that was strong, which clearly meant there were other aliens just as if not MORE powerful out there so this story made sense.

2) Unity: The Cube was already damaged and messed up, and it was the benevolent Borg Cooperative that destroyed it.

3) One: It was the super-advanced drone that destroyed the Borg ship.

4) Unimatrix Zero: Again, benevolent Borg saved them.

5) Dark Frontier: It was a PROBE ship that wasn't stronger than Voyager to begin with.

So what if the ship didn't take a lot of damage? The ENT-D didn't look all that damaged after BOBW, and there were plenty of alien repair stations and commerce worlds they could go to for help. They just didn't bother showing it because they couldn't think of any good stories that had the ship out of the picture for entire episodes and they didn't have the money to make brand new space station sets and models.

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you're right on the technical merits, but from a dramatic perspective, it doesn't matter HOW they keep escaping or defeating the Borg. Routinely running into them and emerging unscathed just weakens them as a threat.

The Borg, as an intimidating concept, were just not going to make it through the repeated uses that Voyager put them through.

You'll notice that through an entire six-year TNG run(starting from second season) plus a movie series, the Borg Collective in force was used a total of three times. The Borg remained scary on TNG because they were used sparingly.

Here's what few of you seem not to have cottoned onto... The reaosn Voyager continued to survive confrontations with the Borg is because the Borg had simply no interest in destroying Voyager. Voyager was not a threat, and this is way more important: Voyager coun't hide from the Borg.

To move as fast as the Borg do, they have to be able to navigate and scan ahead of themselkves for proximate dangers and obstructions... At the speeds we are talking about, any Cube should be able to lock onto any chunk of matter the size of a breadbox half a galaxy away from where ever they are floating... And that's just a ship, Iagine what their listenign posts and observatories are capable of... IN any adventure the Voyager haswith the borg, it would take them 5 decades at maximumn warp before they're off the Borgs Long range scans.

The Borg could have destroyed Voyager whenever they felt like it.

But then we get back to the point that there was no reason to, and no benefit, and if they had long term plans that involved Voyager, destroying Voyager might be a detriment to the Collective.

^^^All this is completely correct. And the defeat of the Borg at the end of Child's Play was with the help of the alien disease carried by Icheb.

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I think you mixed up your episodes.
The Borg sphere in "Child's Play" was defeated due to Seven beaming a torpedo on board the shuttle Icheb was on and set to detonate once it entered the sphere. It had nothing to do with Icheb's virus. "Collective" was the ep. in which Icheb's virus damaged the cube.

2. "BOBW"-Borg destroy an entire fleet of ships, come within an eyelash of conquering the Federation

3. "FC"- Borg basically take over the Enterprise from within in a short period of time, only fail in their conquest because of Data

Each time, they're intimidating, tough, and come pretty close to winning

TNG DIDN'T water down the Borg, that's why you don't hear that criticism.

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In "BOBW" the Admiral repeatedly says the Borg are going to get though their defences because they simply weren't ready for them yet. They hadn't finished building a new fleet to defend Earth. They had already told us, the Borg weren't going to beat us because they were more powerful. Starfleet was simply to slow and lax building a new fleet of ships.

DS9 "The Search" is before "FC", in "The Search" Sisko says Starfleet put building a fleet of Defiants on the back burner due do to the Borg not attacking again. As we saw after "FC" and during the Dominion war, Starfleet now is building more and more vessels that can battle the Borg and Dominion. Again, Starfleet was to slow and lax in prepping to defending themselves.

Plus depending on who you talk to, I hear allot of fans saying TNG watered down the Borg with "Decent". IMO, the Borg were watered down during "I.Borg" by making Hugh a passive Borg. Hugh had the ability to assimilate the Enterprise and it's crew and never once took advantage of the tactical advantage he was given. I thought the Borg were ruthless and relentless?

Here's what few of you seem not to have cottoned onto... The reaosn Voyager continued to survive confrontations with the Borg is because the Borg had simply no interest in destroying Voyager. Voyager was not a threat, and this is way more important: Voyager coun't hide from the Borg.

To move as fast as the Borg do, they have to be able to navigate and scan ahead of themselkves for proximate dangers and obstructions... At the speeds we are talking about, any Cube should be able to lock onto any chunk of matter the size of a breadbox half a galaxy away from where ever they are floating... And that's just a ship, Iagine what their listenign posts and observatories are capable of... IN any adventure the Voyager haswith the borg, it would take them 5 decades at maximumn warp before they're off the Borgs Long range scans.

The Borg could have destroyed Voyager whenever they felt like it.

But then we get back to the point that there was no reason to, and no benefit, and if they had long term plans that involved Voyager, destroying Voyager might be a detriment to the Collective.

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I don't buy this. To the Borg point of view, Voyager should have screwed with their plans enough by "Dark Frontier," and certainly by "unimatrix zero," to be considered enough of a threat to just send a few cubes to take them out. The Borg look either lazy, incompetent, or stupid for not doing so.

by that same token, the Borg should have assimilated the Federation long ago in numbers... not just sending 1 cube.

As for Voyager messing with Borg plans... meh... those were pitiful attempts at best that the Collective could have easily discarded.
It wouldn't be until Unimatrix Zero that they seriously started messing up their plans because they affected things on a much larger scale - which resulted in a Borg resistance movement and could have kept the Collective at bay from coming after Voyager.

Then that concept was dropped, and come Endgame where Voyager ends up seriously crippling the Borg in just one shot.
They destroy the Unimatrix 01 along with the Queen, and their entire TW network with all the hubs.

Dr Evils Henchman who was flattened by a steam roller in the first Austin powers Movie?

The Borg think that Voyager is that Steamroller, and that they are not as stupid as Steven. That taking two steps to the left will make it impossible for Voyager to come within a thousand light years of anything they determine as vulnerable or delicate.

Lets just repeat the mantra... "The Borg assimilate societies, not individuals."

Actually, the Borg started to fail since their usage in TNG as well.
It started with I Borg, Descent, then went on to FC with the introduction of the queen.
Voyager actually kept in line with 'no queen' in Scorpion... but then used her in Dark Frontier.

And most of their 'incidents' with the Collective resulted in Voyager barely getting out alive or always getting help from a force that could stand up to the Borg.

Voyager was left alone after Scorpion because of the deal with the Borg by Capt. Janeway. Non the less, in the years following it is Capt. Janeway's brainiac thing to do to severely weaken the Borg. Somethimes the crew wanted out but idiosyncratic Janeway kept plugging.
Since TNG the Borg are irrepressable. This means no matter what you throw at them even more will bounce back.
The Borg are also tacticle. It is like a small robot who views all its many wonderful parts and minions and keeps an eye out for the enemy. This is why why the Borg aren't Galactic wide but stay in the Delta Quadrant. The basis of the Borgs intelligence isn't flesh.